‘We raised it with the Head’: the educational practices of minority ethnic, middle‐class families

Abstract

This paper discusses findings from a small‐scale empirical exploration of the views, experiences and educational practices of middle‐class minority ethnic families in the United Kingdom. It draws on semi‐structured interviews conducted with 36 parents, pupils and ‘young professionals’. Analyses consider to what extent generic class resources, as identified by the US work of Lareau, are evident within the educational practices of British middle‐class, minority ethnic families. It is argued that generic class resources and practices were evident to the extent that parents expressed a desire for personalised education, felt comfortable voicing their opinions and concerns to schools, and were willing to climb the ladder of authority to get their voices heard. However, it is also argued that ‘race’ plays a significant and complicating role that calls for a qualification (but not a negation) of Lareau’s theorisation.

Keywords:

• minority ethnic
• middle‐class
• identity
• education
• parents

Notes

1. C. Vincent et al., ‘The educational strategies of the Black middle classes’. http://www.ioe.ac.uk/research/32261.html.

2. Schools were provided with information letters and asked to distribute these to any UK national pupils who were recorded on their databases as from minority ethnic backgrounds (including ‘mixed’ heritages). These letters specified that the study was looking for parents who were in professional/managerial occupations. Snowballing was conducted via a range of personal and professional contacts in which contacts were provided with a standard information letter and email for distribution to anyone who fitted the listed study criteria regarding social class (self or at least one parent to be in a professional/managerial occupation) and minority ethnic background (from a ‘visible’ minority ethnic group). No pupil access issues were encountered in the schools approached that returned a high proportion of eligible pupils – although proportionately fewer parents agreed to take part (n = 5). Hence many of the interviewed parents were drawn from snowballed sample (n = 8).

3. ‘First‐generation’, middle‐class individuals being defined as those from working‐class backgrounds who have become socially mobile in their own lifetime; second‐generation, middle‐class individuals having parents who were the first generation to achieve social mobility.

4. Similar accounts were also produced by a number of the ‘first‐generation’, middle‐class young professionals; for example, Kofi described his mother as ‘really distant’ from his schooling (‘she literally went to school about three times’). Likewise Danny explained that his parents had never known anything about what he was studying and had little or no contact with the school.